


That's Not A Hug: Part 2

by ObservationalObsessive



Series: Thunder and Lightning [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Drugged Peter, Father Figures, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt Peter Parker, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kidnapped Peter, Kidnapping, Missing Peter, Not Canon Compliant, Osborn is a jerk, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Scared Peter, Tags Are Hard, Tags Contain Spoilers, Tony "I can't be a dad" Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, injured peter, mentor, not-water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-09 16:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11108661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObservationalObsessive/pseuds/ObservationalObsessive
Summary: The freezing cold of the sewer water seemed to attack him as it seeped rapidly through the material of his red and blue suit. It felt as if the grimy water was gnawing relentlessly at his flesh, so icy his skin was throbbing. He spluttered and coughed, flailing his limbs madly, creating more waves which crashed back against his body every time.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is part two! I won't be uploading this one all at once. It's still only three chapters but I'm revising the second two a bit. Like I said in the last one's end note and like the tags say, this is not canon compliant. The next one is significantly less so. 
> 
> I didn't put it in the warnings because I didn't feel that is was graphic but there is some violence in this fic. Hopefully it's not too much of an issue for you. Anyway, carry on! I won't drag this out an longer! :)

The freezing cold of the sewer water seemed to attack him as it seeped rapidly through the material of his red and blue suit. It felt as if the grimy water was gnawing relentlessly at his flesh, so icy his skin was throbbing. He spluttered and coughed, flailing his limbs madly, creating more waves which crashed back against his body every time.

The shock of the sudden wetness and unimaginable cold rendered him completely useless and he couldn't seem to remember how to move well enough to get out of the water. His brain seemed to have frozen too and it was getting harder and harder to breath. He didn't really remember doing it, but eventually he must've managed to climb out and stretch out on the cement along the side of the water.

Peter Parker squeezed his eyes shut and focused on his breathing.

He honestly wasn't sure what had even happened to him. One minute he was fighting some stupid attempted bank robbers and the next he was being tossed into the sewer. In January. While it was snowing.

Apparently Peter had never really known cold until now.

Once his breaths had calmed down significantly, he opened his eyes and forced himself to sit up, ignoring his shivering self and the aching in his body that was screaming at him to stop moving. His head was pounding and his mind swimming. For a moment he thought he'd forgotten to actually open his eyes when he was met with complete darkness. Soon after, once his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he realized that this was not the sewer after all.

Instead of the interior he was used to seeing in the sewers - he'd rather not get into all the times he'd had to go down there - he was met with some sort of makeshift science lab. Whatever he'd fallen into was definitely liquid and sure looked as filthy as the water in the sewers but now he wondered if it was even water at all. He hoped it was because the last thing he needed was to find out he'd been doused in unknown chemicals.

A rough hand grabbed at his arm and yanked him into a standing position, rattling his throbbing brain in the process. He was forcibly turned around to meet the faces of not only the supposed bank robbers - he wasn't sure about that now - but also a tall and sadistic looking man. The man gave him the most disturbing grin Peter had ever seen and held out his hands in Peter's direction, as if showing off the latest feature in his darkly lit lab. Peter had an uneasy feeling that was exactly what he was doing. 

As his vision swam he decided that while he didn't know what it was exactly, that liquid had not been water. It seemed to be working like some kind of sedative or something. His muscles felt weak and hardly moveable.

Peter squirmed under the rough hands still gripping his arms. His spider sense had been reduced to a persistent throbbing at the back of his thoughts. Whatever he'd been soaked in was still working to dull all of his senses and as much as he knew his spider sense was trying to scream 'danger' at him, he could barely feel it unless he really focused on it.

"It’s so good of you to join us here, little spider!" The man said slowly, his grin growing. Was he really speaking that slowly or was it Peter's imagination? As he stepped closer his face started to go a little wobbly and Peter was fairly sure it was just him, probably also due to that pool of whatever.

"Aren't you going to say something?" The man spoke again. "I thought you were known for your witty remarks and never ending stream of words. I must say, I'm a little disappointed in you. I’d had such high expectations."

The thought of saying something hadn't even occurred to Peter until then and now that he was thinking of it he didn't know if he could talk if he wanted to. Something told him this guy knew that.

Regardless of that feeling, he fought to try and say something anyway. Even if he wasn't sure he'd get an answer, he was desperate to ask what was going on. He could barely even remember the events that had led to this moment and had no idea where he was or who he was with, though he could certainly guess it wasn't good. His body was numb and screaming at him in pain at the same time, all depending on what he focused on. It was like he'd been split into two people and his mind couldn't pick which one to be in. There was a dazed and dull Spider-Man, unable to stand up if not for the hands still holding him upright and then there was the alert and terrified Spider-Man, trying desperately to fight through his pain. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," the man said in the tone which communicated anything but sorrow or sympathy. "Did you have something you wanted to say?"

Peter looked down and realized that he'd been visibly trying to force himself to speak and had apparently also been trying to fight his way out of the apparent iron vice that was this man's hold on him. His breathing was heavy and was causing his whole body to heave. His head fell back against the man holding him, the movement entirely involuntary.

The tall man stepped forward cautiously, rolling the sleeves of his white lab coat up. Taking note of the lab coat, Peter decided that this guy must be some kind of scientist. "That's it; just relax. Everything will be so much simpler and take less time if you don't fight me on it. And there will be a good deal less pain as well." He said words that should have sounded threatening and cruel as if they were kind and comforting instead. 

There was really no way Peter was going to relax. At least not mentally. He didn’t have much of a choice as far as his body was concerned. This was all so wrong and his mind was trying so hard to pull his unresponsive body out of its lulled state and into action. If he were in complete control of himself, these guys would all be webbed to the floor. Not only was Peter naturally smart and physically enhanced due to the spider bite but Tony had given him some really cool upgrades. There was no ways these guys would win against him!  
But unfortunately, he was not in complete control. Maybe not even partial control at this point…

If they weren’t still holding onto him and watching him like hawks, Peter wondered if he would be able to manage calling Tony for help. But no, that wouldn’t work. First of all, there was no way to do that with these guys around and they clearly weren’t leaving. Second, he didn’t think he’d really be physically capable of doing that. And third, this situation was kinda embarrassing so… did he actually want Tony to find out about it and come flying in to save him? No, maybe not.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He couldn’t believe he’d been tricked by these idiots. Well, maybe they weren’t idiots. He’d sort of written them off as mindless henchmen but what if they were scientists too? And maybe Oscar winning actors who had given one heck of a performance?

Or maybe Peter had just been being careless again and hadn’t noticed how suspicious the entire thing was. It had clearly been a set up and he’d been duped. Tony kept telling him to calm down and be more observant… why did he always have to screw up so badly?

-

When Peter managed to shake himself out his groggy inner thoughts, he saw the scientist guy looking at some kind of monitor. He seemed pretty focused on whatever was on the screen and Peter had a suspicion he wasn’t going to like whatever it was.

Peter wondered if anyone had said something while he’d been thinking. He would really hate to find out that he’d missed some important information. If this guy was planning to monologue, and he sort of hoped he was, it would really be a shame to find out he’d missed the whole thing. He really wanted some answers.

“Bring him here,” the man said suddenly, grabbing Peter’s attention immediately. The men holding him started moving him over toward the monitor, which Peter now noticed was standing beside a rather sinister looking metal table. As much as he would’ve liked to fight back, he didn’t have much choice but to let himself be forced across the increasingly threatening room. “Put him there,” he ordered, waving a hand at the table.

That was when Peter noticed the straps attached to it. Great. This was just getting better and better and all he wanted right then was to go home and curl up on his couch with his aunt and watch a cheesy movie. But instead there were three large men strapping him to a freezing metal table entirely against his will and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

But don’t think that he didn’t try to fight back! Being Spider-Man, Peter felt that he had to at least give it a shot so he strained against their forceful hands the whole time, which was unfortunately about all he could do.

Ultimately, it didn’t make too much of a difference. He still ended up pinned down to the table, the straps digging into his arms and legs painfully. And if they hurt through his current foggy state he wasn’t really looking forward to it wearing off. 

The lab coat guy went to stand closer to the table so that he was right next to Peter’s head. He sighed, almost the way a disappointed father might. Peter grimaced under his mask, not liking the thought at all.

“You shouldn’t have been able to move that much,” the man said thoughtfully, almost to himself. “You see, little spider, I tried to calculate your strength and healing factor but until now… it’s all been educated guesses. Now, I’m finally able to find the answers to all of my questions. Maybe the first thing I’ll have to do is strengthen that sedative.” He grinned again in that awful way that made Peter’s skin crawl. “It might interest you to know that an average grown man wouldn’t have been able to take that much and actually stay conscious. In fact… the majority of them died.”

Peter, who had still been straining under the straps on his limbs, froze at hearing those words.

“I had to test it, of course,” the man told him, leaning closer to the table and making Peter wish he could move away. “How else would I make certain that it would be a match for your strength?”

He gestured to his minions and stepped away. Before Peter had time to guess what was about to happen there was more of that not-water splashing down over his body. He tried to hold his breath before it hit him but still got some up his nose, causing him to start coughing. He forced his head to turn to the side, trying to lessen the amount of liquid getting into his nose and mouth.

His eyes were squeezed shut but he still felt that his vision was swimming again somehow. He fought to stay awake but could feel the little control he’d regained slipping away again. Whatever this was, it was working hard to put him to sleep.

It took a lot of effort but Peter managed to get his eyes open. He couldn’t make any sense of what he was seeing but his goal was only to keep himself awake and it was becoming harder and harder. The last thing he was aware of before the sedative won was a pair of gloved hands reaching for his mask, fingers curling under it. If he hadn’t been slipping out of consciousness in that moment he would’ve given everything he had to keep his mask on but there was nothing to be done.

Why hadn’t he called Tony at the very start of all of this?


	2. Chapter Two

A phone call from May Parker at nearly 6 in the morning was definitely not something Tony Stark had been expecting.

He’d only been asleep for about 40 minutes, maybe an hour but he wasn’t betting on it, when his ringtone had started blasting from his nightstand. Normally, he would’ve hit ignore and gone back to sleep but when he saw the caller ID he thought better of that plan. He couldn’t think of a lot of reasons for May to call him so early in the morning and as much as he hated to think of it… the most logical answer was that there was something wrong. And not just something wrong in general but something wrong with Peter.

While that wasn’t something Tony even wanted to acknowledge as a possibility, he would rather know sooner than later. He’d be able to help more that way.

So, without pausing to think about it, Tony answered the call.

“ _Oh, thank goodness!_ ” May’s voice said through the speaker of the cell phone. “ _You picked up!_ ” She sounded out of breath. Like she’d been crying.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Tony responded, sitting up in his bed. “What’s going on?” He was trying to sound somewhat casual. He didn’t want to get upset without actually having any information. 

May took a deep, shuddering breath and waited a moment before speaking. “ _I… I don’t know. I think there’s something wrong with Peter and I didn’t know who to call. I-I don’t have… you were the only one I could think of._ ”

Tony nodded even though she couldn’t see him. He got up from the bed and set the phone back on the nightstand, putting it on speaker while he got into some jeans. “May, it’s ok. You need to breath. Just… just tell me what’s wrong with him, ok? Is he hurt?”

“ _What? No, I - well, I don’t think so. Oh, I hope he’s not hurt!_ ”

Tony was about to ask what was happening again when she started talking once more.

“ _He’s gone. I don’t know where he is and I’ve tried calling but… nothing. He never came home from school and I was worried last night - especially when he wasn’t answering my calls, which he always does - so I was going to stay up and wait for him but I fell asleep and when I woke up a half hour ago I went to see if he was in his room but he’s not and it doesn’t look like he ever came back._ ”

Tony’s blood seemed to go cold at this news. He wasn’t sure what to think. Peter usually went home for the evening before going out as Spider-Man unless he was using Tony as cover so he could get started sooner. But that clearly hadn’t happened because he always at least stopped by when he did that and if he hadn’t spoken to May then he couldn’t have used _anything_ as cover.

All Tony could think was that maybe Peter had seen something on his way home and had to change into the suit. But what had happened that had prevented him from returning to his apartment or at least answering his phone? How hard was that?

“ _Hello? Are you still there? Please, I need help finding him. I don’t know what to do!_ ” May sounded considerably frantic and Tony couldn’t help the guilt he felt. All of this was his fault. He never should’ve gone to them at all. He knew Peter was constantly trying to better himself and live up to Iron Man and the other Avengers, which was ridiculous to Tony since they were all screwed up and Peter should know that after Germany. But maybe if he’d never met Tony he wouldn’t feel such a strong need to be like him. Tony should’ve stayed away.

But it was too late for regrets now.

“Yes,” he said, picking his phone up again and hurrying out to the landing pad. “Yes, I’m here. Sorry, May, I was just trying to think of a way to fix this. Ok, uh, just hold on a second, ok?”

Once his suit had assembled around him, he blasted off from his pad and headed straight for the Parkers’ apartment. He didn’t have a plan but he was determined to find out what had happened to Peter somehow. 

-

Tony had landed and gotten out of his suit a block away from the apartment complex. He’d taken a portable one so that he could just carry it in a less conspicuous form. Luckily for him, it was 6 so there weren’t too many people just hanging around and those that were out were on their way to work or school. He wasn’t too exposed.

He tried to avoid going to the Parkers’ home to keep attention away from Peter and his aunt. The last thing he wanted was for someone to figure something out that should’ve been kept secret and if it was going to happen he’d rather it not be his fault. But this was an emergency and he wasn’t as concerned with keeping identities secret as he was with keeping super-kids alive.

He got to the door and knocked, keeping his head down while he waited. He slipped in as soon as the door opened and set his suit on the small kitchen table.

In an unexpected turn of events, May grabbed him in a tight hug. Weird. He’d sort of gotten the impression that they weren’t friends.

“Thank you,” she choked. “Thank you so much for helping me! I don’t know what I would’ve done if -”

Tony nodded as she stepped back. “I want to help, May. But we can’t waste time talking about anything other than Peter right now. He is our priority.”

May nodded and wiped away the tears in her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Let’s sit down. Let me get you coffee. If you’re half as tired as me, you need it.”

Tony wanted to protest, still feeling that they had to get straight to finding out where Peter was but… she already had a pot made and it did sound pretty great. He nodded back at her went to sit on the couch and wait.

“Um, the last time I saw him - Peter - was before school yesterday,” May said while she got the mugs down. Her voice was quivering but Tony could tell she was trying to remain composed. “Everything was… well, it was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. He just got his breakfast and left, like always. I told him not to get into any trouble because he’s been having problems with this kid Flash and -”

“What kinds of problems?” Tony interjected, suddenly concerned. He didn’t remember Peter mentioning anything like that. He took his garishly painted mug from May as she sat down with hers.

“Oh, you know, just normal teenager stuff,” May shrugged. “Flash is always picking on him. I don’t understand why because Peter is a great kid!”

Tony nodded impatiently. “Yeah, I know, but picking on him how? Like, are they fighting or what?”

Mary shook her head thoughtfully. “I - I don’t think so. It’s mostly verbal. Flash is just an insecure jerk who’s probably -”

“So you don’t think he would’ve done anything?”

Apparently the suggestion was absurd to May because the second the words had left Tony’s lips she choked on her coffee. “What? No! No, nothing that would make him disappear for this long! Or at all, probably. No. Like I said, it’s mostly verbal.”

“Right, ok. I’m just trying to cover all the possibilities here. What about Ned? His friend? Have you called him? Maybe he stayed over there and his phone just died or something.”  
May shook her head. “No, I called Ned’s mother and she said Ned hasn’t heard from Peter at all since they left school.”

Tony didn’t have a lot of ideas left that didn’t involve Spider-Man and he couldn’t bring that up… but what if something _had_ happened on his way back from school? Maybe Ned did know something that he wasn’t saying, just like the way Tony wasn’t saying everything he knew.

“What did he say _exactly_?” Tony asked. “Ned, I mean.”

May shrugged. “I think he said they said goodbye after school ended and parted ways to go home.”

The billionaire’s brow furrowed at that. “Wait. Don’t they walk home together?”

“I mean, I think so…” She answered, seemingly unsure.

Nodding a few times, Tony downed the rest of his coffee and stood. “Ok. I’m gonna go talk to him but I’ll keep in touch, ok? Call me again if anything changes, yeah?”

“Wait, what?” May turned around on the couch, where she hadn’t moved at all. Tony, meanwhile, was already to the door and holding his suit again. “What about finding Peter?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he reassured her, opening the door and stepping out. “I’m not stopping until I find him, all right?”

And then he was gone, leaving May alone in the apartment once more. She sat on the couch still, completely stunned.

-

Tony felt a little bad about just leaving May behind like that. He could imagine how scared she was. She didn’t even have any idea what could’ve happened. As much as Tony hated the thought that something had happened to Peter as Spider-Man, it was nice to at least have a plausible answer to this. He wasn’t sure how he’d deal with something like this in May’s position.

But as hard as it was on her, he couldn’t bring her along and he couldn’t tell her what he was thinking. That wasn’t his place at all. That was entirely up to Peter.

It didn’t take long to find Ned’s home, thanks to FRIDAY who was all kinds of helpful. The problem was that Tony had no explanation for being there. He had a reason to be at the Parkers’, if he really had to give one, which was the phony grant money. But it didn’t make sense for Tony Stark to be going to the home of his “intern’s” friend. That was unusual.

Of course, there was an answer, which was that Peter was missing and Ned might know something but if that got out it would put Peter in the spotlight. Tony couldn’t have that. So instead of going into the building he put the suit on and flew to the roof. Then he had FRIDAY get Ned’s phone number and call him.

It was a long shot since not everyone answers a random number but Tony was lucky enough that Ned did.

“ _Hello, this is Ned,_ ” his voice came through Tony’s helmet.

“Uh, yeah, hi,” Tony responded. “This is Tony Stark. I’m gonna cut right to the chase here,” he said, not giving Ned the chance to either freak out or insist it was a prank call. “You’re a friend of Peter’s and I need you to come up to your roof right now. I have to talk to you.”

“ _Well, I was just leaving for school but…_ ” there was silence for a moment and Tony was about ready to hit something. “ _If it’s about Peter then ok… I’m on my way up right now._ ”

If not for the fear that was still residing in Tony’s heart, he might’ve laughed that this kid had actually just hung up the phone on Tony Stark, aka _Iron Man_. That was certainly not normal, which sort of explained why Peter liked this guy so much. He couldn’t seem to have any truly normal thing in his life.

Ned got there pretty quickly, which relieved Tony. He didn’t want to sit around waiting just then. Without sparing a moment, he started questioning Peter’s friend.

“You told your mom and Peter’s aunt that that last time you saw Peter was before you walked home yesterday, correct?”

Ned nodded and readjusted his backpack straps on his shoulder. “Yeah, but I was lying. And you knew that. That’s why you’re here. Look, man, he’s not answering anyone’s calls and I’m getting really worried. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Tony felt his jaw clench at that. He nodded stiffly. “All right. What happened, Ned?”

“I don’t know, really,” he sighed, shaking his head sadly. “We were walking home and there was some kind of bank robbery going down or something. Peter said something seemed really weird about it and he told me to go home by myself while he took care of it. I asked what he was going to and he said he would try to draw the crooks away and then figure the rest out.” He shrugged and then continued when Tony didn’t say anything. “Every time something like that happens, Peter tells me to go. I don’t really _want_ to but I do. So I never see what happens unless it ends up on YouTube, which this hasn’t. So I have no idea where he went. Or where the bank robbers went. But I’ll bet those guys would be a good start if you can find out who they are or who they work for or something.”

Tony nodded silently and clapped Ned on the shoulder, making sure to be gentle since he was wearing a suit made out of metal. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how helpful this has been. If you want, I can call or text you if I find something. So you don’t have to worry.”

Ned gave him an enthusiastic nod and an attempt at a smile. “Thanks, Mr. Stark. I appreciate that. You should go. So should I. School.”

Giving the kid a final nod, Iron Man flew away from the building and went straight for the bank near Peter’s school. He had to find out everything he could about that robbery, which he had somehow heard nothing about.

There hadn’t been any news reports on it. Tony knew because he had FRIDAY keeping tabs on all Spider-Man related news and alerting him about anything important. This certainly sounded important enough to merit an alert and some kind of news coverage… but nothing. He even told FRIDAY to check again, just in case she’d missed it when it had happened or something. Of course, this didn’t bring any new results and Tony wasn’t surprised. FRIDAY didn’t miss things like that.

But the lack of coverage was making Tony suspicious, though probably anything would at that point. This whole thing was just bad, no matter how you spun it, and Tony couldn’t help it if he was a little on edge.

When the security footage from the time Ned had given turned out to be badly scrambled and no one seemed to know anything about the robbery, which had apparently failed, Tony knew he wasn’t just being paranoid. There was something weird going on and there was nothing good about it.

Tony hovered in his suit above the street the bank was on and tried to think of which way they could’ve gone. Really, it could’ve been anywhere. There had been more people around. FRIDAY had found some mentions of what happened on social media from people he assumed had witnessed the attempted crime. But none of what they were saying was going anywhere.

This was telling Tony that whoever was doing this had money… someone had to be paying off various news outlets and trying to cover up the story. No one could do that without money and Tony couldn’t think of another reason for everyone to be so quiet.

But what rich person was out to get Spider-Man and why?

And more importantly, what had they done with him?

-

Tony had been about to circle back to Peter and May’s apartment and think when we remembered something Peter had told him a while back. Tony had been curious about how Peter had gotten his powers and the kid had been happy to talk about it.

Apparently, it had happened during a school trip to Oscorp. There had a been a spider that had gotten loose in one of the labs the students had seen and when it bit Peter’s hand he’d gotten superpowers out of it. They both thought it seemed like Oscorp must’ve been doing some kind of experimentation on the spider for it to do something like that.  
Something they’d never talked about, however, was what Oscorp did afterward. Did anyone ever find the spider? Were there more like it?

Well, it occurred to Tony now that if he had a spider in his lab and was trying to do something to it and it bit some kid… he’d be concerned. Even if they weren’t trying to make a spider that could bestow super-powers on a person and therefore wouldn’t necessarily assume that would happen to him, wouldn’t they notice when a spider themed super hero popped up not too long after that?

And wasn’t Norman Osborn rich?

Yes. Yes he was.

Maybe it was a long shot, but Tony decided that this was at least worth looking into. If he was being entirely honest, Tony would probably want to get to Spider-Man if he thought he might’ve caused him. Although, he would just want to talk but… you know, kidnapping works too.

Tony shook his head and sped up. He was heading back to his tower to spend some time trying to figure out how he could prove or disprove his theory. After that, he’d need to find Osborn if it looked like he might be right about him.

He was trying to tell himself that even if it turned out to be Osborn it didn’t mean anything. Maybe he had only wanted to talk and Peter had decided to go with him…

But, no. It just didn’t make sense. There was still the suspicious bank robbery. And the fact that it had been so long. Why, if Peter had decided to go chat with some guy he didn’t know, wouldn’t he have texted Tony to let someone know where he was going? Or why would he ignore his aunt’s probably endless calls and messages? At this point, there was a good chance that his phone was dead but was it already dead at the start of this mess?

Tony sighed frustratedly when he landed, hurrying inside without bothering to get out of his suit. He just retracted the helmet and got straight to work. Setting FRIDAY on a few tasks, he took on a few of his own. This was why he’d needed to be in his tower. Multitasking was easier there than in his suit where he could really only have FRIDAY do things for him.

The problem was that Tony wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. The first thing he did was confirm that Norman Osborn was currently in town. He was and Tony wasn’t decided on how that made him feel. 

“Boss,” FRIDAY’s voice rang out from all around the room. “I’ve found some traffic cameras near the bank. Most of the ones nearby were scrambled but I’ve got some footage here. Shall I play it for you?”

“Yeah, get it up there,” Tony said, still looking at two other screens at the same time. “Tell me if anything weird shows up. I can’t look right now.”

There was a moment of silence. FRIDAY didn’t answer and Tony kept to what he’d been doing. Then, after maybe two minutes of tense quiet, FRIDAY’s voice broke out again.  
“Would three black vans in a row count as weird to you?”

Tony’s head snapped up to face the screen. “Pause it!”

And there they were. Just as his AI had said, there were three black vans turning off into an alley, which definitely seemed a little strange to Tony. And it was just after Ned had told him the bank robbery happened. Unfortunately, FRIDAY couldn’t get anything else that showed what the vans did after turning into the alley but Tony decided it was a good enough start.

“FRIDAY, text May and Ned and tell them I have a lead and will get back to them as soon as I can!”

“Right away, boss,” the AI answered as Tony shot out the door and flew back in the direction of the bank, heading to the alley the vans had gone to. As soon as he got there he started scanning the closest buildings for anything out of the ordinary.

Unexpectedly, what he found was underground instead. There was a strange number of heat signatures under the concrete and FRIDAY told him that everything under there was out of commission, which meant one of two things as far as Tony could think.

Either there was a group of homeless people camping out in an abandoned part of the sewers or whoever had taken Spider-Man was hiding there. And Tony was more than willing to bet at this point that it was Osborn and his goons. Clearly he had goons if this was all him… 

He landed by the grate and ripped it out, telling FRIDAY to warn him of any danger. Then he started climbing down the ladder.

The first thing he was noticed was that this place no longer looked like a sewer. Walls had been put in to block off this section and Tony wondered how far it went. It looked considerably cleaner but not clean enough to be any kind of regulation laboratory. It wouldn’t be safe. So if he was right about this being connected to Oscorp he guessed that whatever was going on down there wasn’t approved. Although, Norman owned the company and could approve whatever he wanted, though he’d probably want to keep anything questionable under wraps to avoid any roadblocks in his work. Whatever that might be…

Tony knew he was being a little paranoid and assuming the worst but he couldn’t logically make any of this out to be good…

If he searched this whole place and Peter wasn’t there, Tony didn’t know what he’d do. Well, he’d probably keep this area on some sort of watch list since it was ridiculously shady. But if he found out that he’d wasted so much on something that didn’t help him get Peter back he would never forgive himself for it. Especially if something happened to - 

And that was when he heard a gut wrenching scream echo through the dimly lit makeshift hallways. As soon as it started, it was cut short as if someone was trying to muffle the sound.

Tony had never wanted to be wrong more than in that moment because he could swear that scream had been Peter Parker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will probably take a while. It's significantly longer and will take a while to clean up.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll get the next one out as soon as I can! Let me know what you think in the comments!


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I got this done faster than I'd been anticipating! :) It's a whole lot longer and is the end of this story. There's more to come however. I'm just going to put it out there that some characters are OOC. They are molded into versions of their characters that fit into this story, which is going to much bigger than this. Right now, the character who is changed the most is May. Just as a little disclaimer here, I do really like her character and I know she's very OOC. But in this story, this is just the way she is. More information at the end.

The first thing Peter noticed when he regained consciousness was pain.

Just pain.

His entire body was screaming at him and his Spidey sense felt like it was trying to drill a tunnel through his head and escape. It probably was.

When he tried to look around, he couldn't focus on any one thing long enough to understand what he was seeing. It was the same with his hearing.

This was different than the not-water from before. This is was being caused almost purely by the pain, which demanded Peter's full attention and refused to let him think about anything else.

He squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could and tried to think about something else. Anything else.

He couldn't. And now he was pretty sure he was crying. Maybe he already had been. He wasn't sure.

There were people talking around him and he wanted so badly to know what they were saying but he couldn't understand any of it. The only words he could distinguish were "spider", "awake", "scalpel", and "needle".

He wasn't encouraged.

The pain was mostly unidentifiable. There was simply pain and Peter couldn't figure out exactly where all of it was coming from. Even so, he kept feeling new bursts and stabs of pain that hurt the most for a moment and then faded in with the rest.

He could probably make a guess as to what was happening from those select words he'd heard but he decided he'd rather not think about that. He was a little more curious about _why_ it was happening for the moment.

"No, no, not there," he heard someone snap forcefully. "I don't care, just start again but more to the left." More pain. Peter didn't want to know what they were talking about.

The more awake he became, the more aware he was. He didn't know if he really liked that yet. He was distinctly aware of the tears trailing down the sides of his face and that just made more of them spring up.

He hated this. He hated everything about it. He hated the pain, the embarrassment, the lack of control he felt, and he hated that he didn't know or understand anything. As hard as he tried, he couldn't feel anything but useless. If he had been better, this wouldn't have happened. And now he was helpless and incapable of doing anything.

The feeling of someone brushing his hair from his forehead pulled him from his miserable thoughts. His eyes snapped open and this time he could focus a little better. Still not as well as he would've liked but -

Was that Norman Osborn leaning over him?

Oh my gosh, it was. Peter wasn't really sure if he was going completely crazy and imagining things or if Osborn was actually there. Why would he be there?

But why not?

Peter realized he didn't really care at this point. He was basically past that. He'd accepted that he wasn't going to get any answers so why bother questioning anything?

"- glad you've finally joined us again." Wait, was Osborn talking to him? It seemed like it. "You know, it's very interesting… even under the influence of my sedative, you've been extremely responsive."

What was that supposed to mean?

Another sharp burst of pain coming from somewhere on his side interrupted his thoughts. Peter decided to focus entirely on whatever Osborn was trying to say to him. Maybe then he could ignore the pain a little.

"It seems that this entire time," Osborn smiled almost gleefully. "You've still been feeling the pain of all of our tests and experiments. Now, don't look like that, little spider. I'm a man of science. I wasn't going to just… _not_ try to figure out how you work. Surely, you can understand that."

Peter heard someone a little farther down say something about rust. Then someone else told him it didn't matter and to just keep working.

_Great._

Osborn sighed impatiently. "I can't help feeling that you're not really giving me your full attention. You seem so distracted. Well, I'm not going to keep you awake if you aren't even going to pay attention."

Oh no, not more not-water. That was not what Peter wanted.

Osborn stepped away so that he was out of Peter's line of vision. If he hadn't been having so much trouble moving through the pain, he might've been able to move around enough to see where he'd gone.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash from across the room.

Peter could hear people shouting and what sounded like something metal hitting things. He tried to move enough to see what was going on but couldn't get his head up enough. The more he heard, the more frustrated he got. He was completely sick of this.

Then he heard a slightly mechanic voice shout, "What did you do to him?"

Peter froze. There was no way.

He fought harder to get his head up and actually managed to get a glimpse of some of what was happening. There were a lot more people around than he'd thought before so he either hadn't noticed them all or more of them had shown up while he was out. There were scientists in lab coats trying to protect their work and there were bigger men trying to fight against Iron Man.

_Iron Man?_

No, he had to be imagining it.

"Tell me now," Iron Man demanded again, punching one of the thugs in the face hard enough that he'd probably have a broken nose. "What did you do to Spider-Man?"

"Tony!" Peter tried to yell, his voice weak and painful. He still wasn't even sure this was happening. It probably wasn't. There was just no way. How could he have actually found him?

Iron Man turned to face him just as he blasted another thug in the chest.

Then everything started to turn foggy again and Peter realized that Osborn had in fact gone for more not-water and was using it on him. He fought against not only the groggy feeling trying to take him over once more but the hands trying to hold him still on the table. He couldn't hear anything anymore and wondered how long it had been since Osborn came at him again with the not-water. Had this all been some kind of hallucination?

No, that hadn't happened before.

Had it? Peter wasn't sure and he didn't know if it was that he couldn't remember everything from before or that he just couldn't think straight now.

He tried to keep pushing back against the hands pressing down painfully on his chest but he didn't have the strength left for that.

Just as he started to give in the sleepy feeling pulling him back in, he thought he heard someone yelling his name…

-

It felt like every time Tony got one guy down, there were two more. But maybe that was because he kept hitting them all again. He'd wanted to hit someone all day and these guys were perfect for that. Every punch seemed to relieve some of the stress that had been building up all day while adding to t at the same time because it was never enough. There were always more coming at him and he didn't feel like he was getting any closer to helping Peter.

He tried again to demand some answers every few hits but no one was telling him anything. Maybe this wasn't the best way to get anyone to talk but he was acting on impulse.

A group of scientists were scattering around some tables, trying to gather things up. Tony didn't know what it was but he didn't want it getting out. He sent a blast from his repulsors at them, knocking over the tables and even a couple men.

He could see Peter strapped down to a table and he looked like he was moving but Tony couldn't be sure. He couldn't get a good enough look at the kid while he was beating on these guys.

"Look, I want to know just what exactly you have done to Spider-Man _right now,_ " Tony bellowed. "I'm not messing around here. You tell me now or you don't walk out of here."

He noticed someone back over by Peter who had been previously abandoned. He could see Peter's legs kicking as much as they could under the straps. Whatever that guy was doing, it was not ok.

"Hey!" Tony boomed, all of the mostly beaten thugs around him and stalking toward the table. The man turned around to face him.

_Osborn._

So he'd been right.

"You can't just barge in here, Stark," Osborn snarled, pointing a finger at the other man. "We're doing important research and you -"

"No," Tony interrupted forcefully. "If you're not going to give me answers, you don't get to talk."

Osborn opened his mouth to try and speak again but before he could a metal fist slammed painfully into his face, making him stumble away from the table. A handful of his men ran over to help him get out before Tony could decide to hit him again. For a brief moment, Tony thought that a punch like that should've knocked the man out but he ignored it, turning his focus to Peter instead.

He wasn't moving anymore but Tony was sure he had been before. What had Osborn done?

"Peter! Peter, come on."

His Spider-Man suit had been cut up and almost entirely removed, apparently so they could cut him up and attach tubes and wires to him. Most of it was fairly small but it all looked painful, the flesh around each incision inflamed and angry. The tools still sitting around weren't clean enough, some of them even starting to rust. There were a few places where Tony could tell they'd been digging around inside of Peter, probably taking samples, which make him sick to think about.

The worst part was the lower section of Peter's left arm, starting at his wrist and going up about four inches. They had opened the flesh and pinned it back, giving access to the inside. What they had been doing, Tony didn't even think he wanted to know. The exposed muscle and veins was nauseating to look at. That was clearly going to need work. It would probably scar.

Tony frowned angrily and whirled around, hoping there was still someone here who he could make talk. Maybe if he could focus on just one person he'd be able to get something out of them.

But there was almost no one left and those that were still present were slumped on the ground, clearly unable to tell him anything.

He turned back to Peter desperately.

"FRIDAY, check vitals now," he ordered, retracting his helmet. He waited impatiently for what felt like at least a half hour but was more likely less than a minute.

"Multiple -"

"No, just… we'll worry about that later. Is he alive? Is there a pulse?"

"Yes, boss. He's alive," the AI answered.

"No. No, he's not… he's not even breathing. Is he breathing?" Tony groaned frustratedly. "Just - just get me out of this thing."

His suit started to open up around him but it was taking too long. "C'mon, c'mon. Just… just get off!" He was pushing forward as soon as he was able to get out, hands moving straight for Peter's neck. He couldn't find a pulse. He moved his fingers around, panicked. FRIDAY couldn't be wrong… but he was so pale and still didn't even look like he breathing but - there! He'd found a pulse. It was faint but it was there.

Tony breathed a laugh and held Peter's face in his hands. He was alive. He was… he wasn't ok but he was alive and they could figure the rest out later.

Tony looked down at the straps that were still holding down Peter's limbs. They looked too tight. The skin around them was raw from his struggling. Tony went to get them open, his fingers fumbling too much as he tried his hardest to avoid touching the open part of Peter's left arm and making him want to yell at something. Or someone. Definitely Osborn.

"FRIDAY, can you tell what they used to knock him out?"

"Some kind of sedative. It seems to be what's in that pool over there."

Tony looked around until he saw what she was referring to. There was a pool of some kind of liquid in the ground. It was about the size of a hot tub. The liquid had splashed up all around the edges of the pool like something had fallen in.

Or been thrown…

He looked back at Peter's still unmoving form on the table and clenched his jaw.

"I don't want to move him until he wakes up. FRIDAY, call May and put her on speaker."

"Dialing, boss."

Tony wasn't sure if it was safe to move Peter yet and wanted to see if he could explain some of what had happened when he woke up. It would be easier to come up with a plan if he had some idea of what was going on. But that meant even more time spent with people wondering where Peter was.

" _Hello?_ " May's voice came from the suit, which was standing beside the table, its front wide open.

"May," Tony greeted, trying not to let it show in his voice how exhausted he was. Emotionally and physically. "I found Peter."

" _What? You did?_ " she gave a relieved laugh. " _Where was he? Can I talk to him?_ "

"Uh…" he hadn't really planned what he would tell her. They weren't going to be able to hide the damage Osborn had done and even if they could manage that there was no good lie to cover this up. "Well, he's… May, he's not in very good shape. I really can't explain everything to you right now on the phone. I, uh, I should probably take him back to the tower for a while."

" _Well, should I meet you there?_ " She asked him.

"No, no. I think it would be best if you just stayed at your apartment for now, yeah? I'll let you know when I'm going to bring him back."

" _Oh…_ " she said quietly. " _If you think that's best then… ok. Just don't forget to call me if anything happens._ "

"Oh," Tony raised his eyebrows in surprise. He'd been expecting more of a fight. "Yeah, I will."

" _Ok then. Thanks for calling me. And for finding him,_ " she said. " _I'll let you go then._ "

The phone call ended then and Tony was left feeling more frustrated than before. Maybe it was just her way of coping but he hated that she didn't seem to mind not getting to be back with Peter again. He would've thought she'd never agree to that. He wouldn't have.

Sighing, he turned his attention back to Peter, who was still out cold. He hated seeing him there on that table. Before trying to move him, Tony found some gauze to try and help a little with Peter's arm. It wasn't the cleanest job he'd ever seen but it would just have to do. We wasn't going to move him around with his arm flapping open so he tried his best to keep it closed up with the gauze wrapped tightly around it.

Once that was done, he slid his arms under Peter's much smaller form and lifted him gently. Making sure he had a good hold on him, he moved over the wall and sat down with his back against it, holding Peter to his chest instead of letting him stay on the cold table.

Peter's head fell to the side and rested on Tony's shoulder. Tony leaned his own head back against the hard wall and frowned. None of this should've happened. But it had and they'd have to live with it.

What mattered now was that Peter was safe again. And Tony was going to make sure this never happened again.

-

Peter was only unconscious for about an hour.

In that time, Tony called Ned to fill him on what had happened. Ned had decided to skip the remaining classes and go meet them in the alley above them. He wanted to help Peter somehow and figured he could look around and try to find where Peter had tossed his backpack while he waited for them. Then Peter could at least change out of his ruined suit.

Ned would worry about his grades later.

Tony told Ned it was good plan and they'd be up once Peter had regained consciousness and felt like he could move. Then he'd shifted a little under Peter and tried to get some rest.

He'd been starting to drift to sleep when Peter started moving. He shifted and groaned a little, burying his face against Tony, before his eyes opened.

"Hey," Tony said quietly, moving his head so he could see Peter's face, which was screwed up in confusion. "Hey, you're ok. I've got you, Peter."

"Wh-what... " Peter blinked rapidly and tried to sit up. Then he remembered how much he still hurt and winced. He looked down at his body and frowned. "What happened?"

Tony sighed. "I was hoping you could help me out with that one."

Peter shook his head slightly, looking around the room. "I don't remember very much of it… I think I was unconscious for most of it. When I wasn't, I couldn't really think straight."

Tony stiffened. "Why not?"

Peter shrugged and rubbed his eyes. "First it was the not-water. Then it was mostly the pain, I think."

"The… not-water?" He squinted at Peter like he was trying to find out if he'd heard him correctly. "What is that?"

"Uh…" Peter looked around again until he spotted the pool. He pointed over at it. "That stuff. Please don't touch it." He let his eyes close again and leaned back into Tony again.

"Why? What is it?"

"I… um, I don't know. It's not water."

Tony sighed and nodded slightly. "Ok then. Can you tell me what it does? C'mon, Peter, I need something here."

Peter nodded, his hair brushing against Tony's jaw as he curled up tighter. "Yeah it… it made me weird. Like a sedative. But Osborn said it was… like, extra strong. Because _I'm_ extra strong."

Tony snorted at that, letting himself smile a little.

"But he said it could kill someone who's not like me so… don't touch it please. I don't want it to kill you."

"Listen, Peter," Tony started, looking away from the "not-water". "Do you think you can move? Ned's outside waiting to help out."

Peter's nose scrunched up when he heard that. "Ned?"

"Yeah, he wanted to help. He's a pretty cool guy." As bad as he felt doing it, Tony started to nudge Peter into an upright position. If the kid fell asleep again they might not get out of there for a while and Tony was more than ready to leave and get Peter back to the tower for medical attention.

Peter nodded again and forced himself to stand, trying to ignore the pain he felt in doing so. He tried to take a step and Tony jumped to his feet to steady him. He grabbed Peter's elbow gently and put his arm behind his back, keeping it there to catch him if he started to fall over.

"Ok, Ned was looking for your backpack so we'll hope we found that. Then you could get some clothes on, yeah?"

Peter didn't answer. Instead, he just tried again to walk. He succeeded in taking a few steps that time. The not-water was still numbing his body a little. Or maybe was the pain from all the places Osborn and his scientists had cut him open.

"Just go slowly, kid," Tony said, looking over at the unconscious thugs to make sure they were in fact still unconscious. The last thing he wanted was for them to get back up make Tony fight them again. Well, he wouldn't _mind_ fighting them again but he didn't want to leave Peter's side.

"FRIDAY, I'm not going to wear the suit out. Just…" He looked at Peter thoughtfully. "Actually… Peter, do you think it would hurt too much to put my suit on you? Just to fly you up through the manhole. I don't want want to make you climb the ladder."

Peter looked at the suit, considering it. He didn't really have very much covering his abused skin and the idea of being enveloped in metal didn't sound too great. "Um… can I wait until we get to the ladder and then decide? I might be ok to climb it."

Tony nodded and told FRIDAY to just follow him in the suit. There didn't seem to be anyone left inside so they able to walk to the ladder undisturbed. They were both grateful for that.

When they got to the ladder, Peter decided to just risk it and climb up himself. It wasn't exactly easy and he felt a little stupid climbing up the ladder with his suit hanging off of him. But he really didn't like the idea of being in the suit almost naked. It sounded more uncomfortable than climbing the ladder to him.

Ned was there helping him out as soon as he reached the top. He grabbed Peter's clammy hands and steadied him when he stumbled forward. As much as Ned wanted to wrap his friend in a tight hug, he thought it might hurt him more than comfort him. Instead, he opened Peter's bag, which he had apparently managed to find, and pulled out his clothes. He handed them to Peter who took them gratefully and went to change behind a dumpster, stumbling a little as he made his way over.. He wanted to have at least a little privacy.

"So… are you gonna feel like telling me about all this in detail later?" Ned asked his friend while he waited for him to finish getting his clothes on. "It's cool if you don't want to… but I just thought I'd ask. 'Cause I've been coming up with possible scenarios all day and if you don't tell me then I'll just pick one to believe."

Peter laughed and leaned this forehead against the side of the building the were beside, breathing heavily. "Sure, Ned. I'll tell you all about it later. I don't remember very much though… so you'll just have to accept whatever I can give you."

Tony, who had stepped just outside of the alley to make a call, came back over to the boys. "Peter, you all good back there?"

Peter threw his torn up suit towards him in response.

Tony caught it and rolled it up. He'd just get rid of it at the tower. He'd make a replacement later. "Ok then. Well, I called Happy and he's coming to pick us up."

"What about Ned?" Peter asked, rubbing his eyes again and coming back over to them now that he was finished changing into his t-shirt and jeans. His gait was stiff and awkward, his arms out at the sides just slightly to avoid rubbing against the fabric more than he had to. He'd decided to leave the sweater off. It had been hard enough getting the rest on. He wasn't going to sit there struggling to pull a sweater on top. That and he felt miserably hot as it was.

"Oh, I'm just gonna walk back to school and try and sneak into my last class."

Tony clapped Ned on the back and gave him a smile. "Ok. Thanks for the help, Ned." Peter nodded in agreement, making a mental note to try and let Ned know how much he appreciated it later. Maybe they could have a video game day or something…

Ned left them with a wave and happy grin. He was probably never going to stop talking to Peter about how he'd helped Iron Man out. Peter decided he wouldn't mind though. It was pretty cool.

Happy got there pretty quickly after that. He'd taken one of Tony's fastest sports cars with the excuse that he wanted to be there quicker but Peter was pretty sure he just wanted to drive the sports car.

Tony's suit was closed up into a somewhat inconspicuous looking case again and they set it in the front seat along with Peter's shredded suit. Tony and Peter got in the back seat and Tony had to hold the door and Peter's good arm to help him get in. He pretended he don't notice Peter's face go red as he climbed in the car, bracing himself on Tony's arm. Once they'd buckled into their seats Tony noticed how tense Peter still was and put his arm gently around the teenager's shoulders. Once Peter started to loosen up he was finally got to go back to sleep, his head falling onto Tony's shoulder once more.

-

Apparently once his extreme exhaustion had worn off, Peter was full of energy.

It _might_ have been slightly influenced but the ridiculous amount of ice cream he and Tony ate while they sat on the couch once they got to the tower. Tony would maybe argue that it wasn't his fault if Peter hate a whole carton of ice cream by himself and it certainly wasn't his fault if it made the kid so energetic.

But whatever the reason, he was hyper.

He couldn't - or maybe wouldn't - sit still for more than a minute, which made it really hard for Tony to patch him up, let alone try and find out the extent of what had been done to him. He was too jittery to just sit in one place and when he did he couldn't stop fidgeting with things.

Tony had managed to stitch up Peter's arm, through he had to take a few breaks since Peter wouldn't stop squirming. He sat bent over the table, his wounded arm extended and his other folded around his face, which was down on the tabletop. He was mostly quiet during the times Tony worked on his arm and wrist. The only noise coming out of him being quiet sobs and whimpers of pain, which Tony pretended he didn't notice.

When Tony tried to fix up the smaller wounds, Peter also couldn't stop talking but not about anything Tony wanted him to talk about. He was just sort of… talking but saying nothing important or pertinent at all.

"Listen, Peter," Tony tried for the fourth time. "I know you might not want to think about it, but we need to talk about what happened to you. Ok? Can you even just tell me about how you ended up in the… sewer lab thing? Anything I can use to pin this jerk?"

Peter cringed and slid off of the countertop he'd been sitting on. "What? No. Let's just move on from the whole thing ok? As long as he doesn't try something again, let's just let him get away with it. Anyway, shouldn't we focus on what we're gonna tell my aunt?" He grabbed a pen from the counter and started clicking the tip in and out.

"I'm sorry, what?" Tony exclaimed with raised eyebrows. "You think we're going to just let him get away with it? No way. Absolutely not."

Peter sighed, clicking the pen faster and biting his lip; the newly stitched skin on his arm started to ache more. "Obviously we can't tell her what really happened, so what are we gonna say? Plus, like, I'm all cut up and bruised and she might notice that."

"Don't say that so casually," Tony said, snatching the pen from Peter's hand and setting it back on the counter. The clicking was giving him a headache. "Look, what Osborn did was totally illegal and just not ok with me on _any_ level. But we can't exactly do anything without exposing you. Not unless we play it smart. There's always a way around any problem."

"Let's ignore my cuts for a while," Peter suggested, moving around Tony to grab a glass. "My best excuses have always been that I either stayed too late at the tower and didn't want to walk back or that Ned and I spent the night playing video games - which we never have time to actually do any more, by the way." He said all of this while he went to the sink to get a glass of water, which he then drank all at once, immediately starting to fill it up again. It shook in his hand under the water until he brought it back up to his lips and downed it again. "But both of those are out the window since you've both made it clear you had no idea what was going on."

"Peter!" Tony finally snapped. "We can't worry about that right now. Taking care of Osborn is more important. We can deal with May later!"

"No, we can't!" Peter argued desperately, tossing the once again empty cup into the sink. "You don't understand. I can't go back there and just… not have an excuse! And neither can you! You're a part of this. I know you don't want to be, but you are. You can't just send me back with no explanation, Tony."

Tony froze and focused on controlling his breathing. He had so much he wanted to say but knew if he did he might just lose it. He wanted to tell Peter that he was wrong about Tony not wanting to be a part of it. He knew Peter thought that Tony felt roped into his life somehow but he didn't. If anything, he thought it was the other way around.

He wanted Peter to understand how badly he wanted to put Osborn away. And he wanted him to understand why. Why didn't he understand? Why was he so okay with everything that had just happened?

Peter stared back at Tony, his eyes slightly wider than usual. His breathing was unsteady and strained. He was finding it harder and harder to maintain eye contact and finally turned away from him completely, running his hands roughly through his hair and wincing when the fabric of his shirt rubs against his skin.

He gave a sudden moan of frustration and tugged at the hem and sleeves of his t-shirt. Why couldn't it just be ok? Why couldn't his shirt just be comfortable and fit nicely so that it didn't rub up on him and make him suffer? Couldn't it just be easy? Couldn't this one thing be easy?

Peter didn't realize that he'd started breathing in short, harsh gasps until he felt Tony's hands encircling his upper arms and heard the man murmur, "Breathe, Peter. Just let yourself breathe."

The teenager closed his brown eyes and tried to control his breathing, the way he'd seen Tony do before. Tony did that when we was upset and it always seemed to help so Peter figured it was at least worth a shot.

His chest hurt and he didn't like trying to breathe deeper. It almost burned and made him feel like he was choking on something. That thought freaked him out.

"Hey," Tony said. "Slow down. You need to breathe slower. This isn't helping you."

Peter hadn't even noticed how fast his breaths were getting again before Tony had said something. He nodded and forced himself to draw out the process of inhaling and exhaling, holding each breath for a moment before letting the air back out.

Tony went through it with him and Peter thought maybe he was trying to calm himself down just as much as he was trying to help Peter.

A couple minutes of this later, he felt significantly calmer. Or at least more composed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered when Tony let go of him. Tony tugged at his shoulder to get him to turn around.

"Don't be," he told him firmly, looking him hard in the eye, like he could see and understand everything he was thinking. "Now let's get you something else to wear, ok? Do you want to wear one of my shirts? They're bigger so maybe it won't be so itchy or whatever yours is right now."

Peter nodded and pulled his t-shirt up over his head, needing a little help from Tony to get it off completely. He noticed that Tony grimaced and looked down at his torso again. He sighed, biting his inner cheek.

"I guess we'd better finish cleaning all this up first, huh?"

Tony nodded sharply and grabbed the first aid kit from the table. "Sit down somewhere. It'll make it easier."

Peter tried to brace himself for the sting of the disinfectant but still hissed through clenched teeth every time it touched his skin. Tony muttered a quick "sorry" every time and tried not to look at Peter's face while he worked. Peter had endured enough pain already and he didn't want to watch him go through any more, no matter how minimal or ultimately beneficial.

So, he wasn't too happy when he got to a few particularly deep cuts. "We might need more stitches, kid…" he risked a glance at Peter's face and saw him appearing to consider it.

"Well… I mean, I heal pretty fast so do we really have to -"

The elevator door slid open unexpectedly and both heroes turned their gazes to it, eyes widening.

Neither one had expected to see May Parker standing there and they were both considerably surprised by the sight.

"FRIDAY!" Tony barked, not even bothering to voice his problem.

"She said she was here to see you and Mr. Parker so I assumed it was safe to send her up," the AI explained to him.

Tony frowned. "What have we said about you making decisions without me? It is not ok!" He stood and walked over to May. "I'm sorry about that. Uh, I thought we said I was bringing Peter back to your apartment?"

"Well, yes, but it has been _hours_ since then and you haven't answered even a single text!" She accused, glaring at him fiercely.

"I had no idea you were trying to get ahold of me, May," Tony protested, holding his hands up in surrender. "I didn't even see any of that."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure you just -"

"Hey, Aunt May," Peter's quiet voice interrupted her and she looked at him suddenly, almost seeming to have forgotten he was even there. Or maybe she hadn't noticed him at all since she'd invited herself in.

May's hand flew over her mouth and she stood there staring at Peter for a solid five minutes before anyone spoke.

"Uh, I… I fell. Into a pit at a construction site," Peter improvised. "It's a really long story and I'd rather not get into it but… that's what happened."

Tony threw one of his softer AC/DC t-shirts at Peter, who caught it effortlessly and hurriedly pulled it on, ignoring the pain he felt in doing so. But his injuries did not look like something a person might get from falling at a construction site so he figured the less May saw of them the better.

She narrowed her eyes and looked between the two of them. "You fell… at a construction site. What were you doing at a construction site?"

Peter opened his mouth to respond but Tony beat him to it.

"May, he just said it's a long story that he _doesn't_ want to talk about." Tony was a little shocked at himself for saying anything. It wasn't his place. May was Peter's aunt and guardian and had a right to be upset about this. Honestly, he would be too. No one liked to be lied to and it was pretty clear that was what was happening. But he'd already started so he stood his ground. "I'm serious. Don't make him talk about something he's not comfortable talking about."

May glared at Tony and nodded, taking a calming breath. "Ok. Fine. You go ahead and cover up whatever he was doing for him. I don't even care."

"Maybe that's the problem!" Tony said coolly, surprising himself again. He looked at Peter at saw a look of shock plastered on the teen's too pale face as well. Then he looked back at May who looked like she was conflicted as to how exactly she felt. He shrugged and raised an eyebrow. "Well, maybe he'd want to tell you if he felt like you cared."

"Tony!" Peter exclaimed, his expression mortified. "No! That is not what's going on here. May, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to -"

"How dare you?" May exclaimed, ignoring Peter and responding to Tony instead. "What gives you the right to talk to me like you know more about this than I do? I am Peter's aunt and you don't get to talk to me about him."

Tony scoffed. "Then maybe you need to do a better job. Maybe none of this would've ever been this bad if you had called me earlier. I could've gotten to him sooner and he wouldn't be in such bad shape."

"That's not her fault!" Peter argued desperately. "You can't… you can't just say something like that, Mr. Stark."

"No," May said without looking at either of them. She had brought both of her hands together to hold her purse in front of her legs and was staring down at it, eyebrows furrowed. Tony couldn't figure out what she was thinking. "I doesn't matter. I'll go back to the apartment. Peter, just... " she shook her head. "Come home when you feel like it."

"Aunt May…" Peter started but trailed off, not really having anything to say.

His aunt looked at him and gave him a weak smile. "Just try to answer your phone from now on, ok? I was worried." She said it like she didn't think he knew.

Peter nodded mutely and watched as she left without another word to Tony, even after Tony tossed out another flippant remark.

"Thanks for stopping by, May." He rolled his eyes and shook his head, turning his back to the elevator as she got in. Peter was pretty sure Tony had just wanted to have the last word.

Peter was fairly sure he had never felt so conflicted in his life. He had no idea what to do or say. His mind was going a mile a minute and he felt like he had about a million different feelings about what had just happened.

He looked up at Tony who just clapped his hands together and said, "Let's finish patching you up so you can go home."

Nodding at Tony, Peter leaned back in his chair again. "Can we just… not talk about what happened?"

Tony came over and lifted Peter's arms up, trying to get the shirt back off without causing too much discomfort. "Which thing? What _just_ happened or… everything?"

"Can it be ok if I say 'everything'?" Peter responded, his voice small. He looked up at Tony and waited, lowering his arms to rest on the table.

"I hate to say it because I don't like the idea of you thinking you have some kind of power over me," the genius started, giving Peter a smirk and sitting down in the chair next to him. "But your sad little babyface is pretty hard to say no to."

Peter laughed a little in spite of himself and ducked his head awkwardly.

Tony laughed softly too and ruffled the younger hero's hair lightly. "All right. You've had a hard day. We'll leave it for now." He reached into the first aid kit and gestured for Peter to give him his right arm. "We're going to talk about it later though. You know that, right?"

Then teenager just looked tiredly at his friend, not offering any sign of agreement. After quietly staring at Tony's expectant expression for a few moments, he sighed. "Sure," he breathed with a barely noticeable nod.

Deciding to let that be enough, Tony got to work on Peter's wounds. They didn't talk very much the rest of the time Peter was there. He wasn't sure if that was because there was nothing to say or because there was _too much_ to say and neither of them knew where to start but Peter was grateful for the silence. He was still catching up to everything that had happened. And there was a lot.

He decided to try and tune out everything around him. He didn't exactly want to think about what he'd been through yet… he just wanted to think about something. Besides, if he made sure to look like he was deep in thought maybe Tony wouldn't try to make him talk.

Of course, he was pretty certain that Tony wasn't going to change his mind and make him talk about Osborn or something. But there was no guarantee that he wouldn't suddenly decide he was in the mood for conversation and try to get Peter to talk.

Mostly for that reason, Peter let his head tip backwards suddenly, startling Tony.

"Are you ok?" The older man asked him, holding his hand still above the spot on Peter's shoulder that he'd just started cleaning.

"Mhm," Peter grunted as confirmation but left his head where it was, just hanging back. It made the blood rush to his brain, which kinda made him feel better for some reason. Peter liked being upside down. Something about it felt right to him.

They continued like that; Peter sitting with his head tipped behind him and Tony doing his best to clean and bandage each wound with making Peter flinch or wince. He counted it as a victory every time he finished one without seeing any signs of discomfort.

For a while, Tony was keeping a mental record of how many times he'd failed and how many times he hadn't. Unfortunately, there were too many small wounds littering Peter's body and Tony lost count before he was even halfway done.

Once Tony was satisfied with the state of Peter's torso and arms, he told him he'd have to look at the kid's legs too. Peter had turned red at that and tried to argue but had eventually given in with the assurance that he could still wear his boxers and Tony's t-shirt, which definitely felt better than his did. There was a strong possibility that he wasn't going to give that back.

As soon as Tony had finished and Peter had gotten his jeans back on, the younger had insisted that he had to get home to his aunt. Tony had tried to get him to accept a ride from either Tony or Happy but he wouldn't. Beaten once more by the puppy eyes, Tony had given in but made him agree that if Peter had any trouble getting back he would stop wherever he was and call for help.

Regardless of how embarrassing it seemed.

Even though he didn't say it, Peter appreciated it. He also appreciated Tony's offer to let him stay the night if May tried to hound him for answers. Peter was pretty certain she wouldn't but there was no way to know that until he got there.

And so, after a quick hug, Peter left the tower and walked back to his apartment. He wasn't feeling strong enough to use his webshooters and didn't even have his suit. So walking it was.

It turned out Peter was right, though he wasn't decided on if he preferred the silent treatment he was getting instead. He knew she'd calm down in a day or two so he just went to his room to work on the homework Ned had apparently dropped off.

Another mental reminder to have a game day with Ned…

Even though he took a little longer than usual to heal from this particular adventure and he slept almost worse than he had the night Ben had been shot, Peter was strangely glad all of this had happened. Even though his aunt wouldn't talk to him and he'd been more embarrassed in a few hours than he usually was through a week of Flash's torment, he couldn't help but smile a little as he sat alone in his room early the next morning.

For about the seventh time, he pulled out his run down cellphone to read the text he'd gotten from Tony almost as soon as he'd walked into his apartment door.

**Hey kid. Everything ok? Call me if you have a problem.**

Of course, Peter wasn't going to. He'd feel too bad. Tony had already done so much for him, he wasn't going to bother him unless it was an emergency.

But he smiled all the same.

Peter tried his best to find the bright side in every situation. And the bright side here was pretty clear to him.

Tony Stark cared about him. Tony Stark was genuinely his friend and he _knew_ he could count on him. He hadn't doubted it… but now he knew it without question.

And when they'd hugged goodbye… Tony had initiated it. And that meant more to Peter than he thought Tony would ever know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok. That's it! As promised... time for some more information about what I have planned. First, I think this stands pretty well on its own. You don't necessarily need to read anything I write after this. However, I want to explain a little bit of what I've been working on and what I have planned. If you're interested in reading it, please, please review and let me know! I'm not going to post it if I don't feel like I know people are interested.
> 
> While this started as a mostly movie-verse fic, it's not any longer. The more it goes, the more original it gets. It's not going to match up perfectly with any movies, comics, or shows. Though it does take inspiration from all of those things. I'm writing the rest of the potential series with two friends. We work on the stories and characters together and I write everything while they beta for me. So far, we have at least four or five stories planned after this. All much longer.
> 
> The story would include the rest of the Avengers, Loki, the Osborns (both as the Goblin at different points), various high school characters such as Ned, Mary Jane, Flash, and Liz, Doctor Conners, Doc Ock, Venom, May, J. Jonah Jameson, and some original characters later on. Like, much later on. We have a lot planned for the story and I don't want to reveal it all here.
> 
> Like I said already, some characters may seem OOC. This is because we're sort of blended various versions of them with our own ideas and made a lot of them our own. Some will be closer to things you recognize than others. The Avengers team is the same as in the movies but, again, the characters may be portrayed differently than they are in the actual MCU.
> 
> Anyway... please let me know not only what you thought of this chapter and story but what you think about further stories!
> 
> -EP90


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